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Top court prosecutor appeals against release of former power company exec

Supreme Court prosecutor Xeni Dimitriou appealed on Friday against the early release from prison of the former managing director of power supplier Energa, Aristides Floros, for health reasons, after questions were raised about the medical certificate that diagnosed him with a disability.

Floros was the managing director of Energa, which, along with another power company, Hellas Power, withheld more than 100 million euros from the Greek state through a special property tax levied via electricity bills.

The companies collected the levies between September 2011 and November 2012 but subsequently failed to hand the money over to the state.

In February 2017, he was convicted of embezzlement, smuggling and money laundering and sentenced to 21 years in jail.

Floros was released from Halkida prison on health grounds. Reports say that the former businessman has been diagnosed with a disability rate of over 67 percent due to epileptic seizures.

The criminal code allows for the release of prisoners with over 67 percent disability if they have served a fifth of their sentence.

According to the prosecutor’s order, signed by deputy Supreme Court prosecutor Haralambos Vourliotis, judicial authorities in Halkida are asked to appeal the ruling releasing Floros and re-examine the entire case file against him.

The order also argues that the certification with which Floros is diagnosed with a disability rate of over 67 percent due to epileptic seizures is vague, ambiguous and is not supported with evidence.

It also lacks the proper documentation and doesn’t specify the way with which the disability was calculated. This, according to Vourliotis, make the ruling “anything but comprehensive and convincing.”

Vourliotis’ order also contains a document by the head of Evangelismos hospital Panagiota Goulaki-Mitsaki, who states that the doctor who opined on Floros’ medical health was not listed in the national health system (ESY) throughout her tenure at the hospital and therefore had no authority to sign off the certificate.

The above document was published on documentonews.gr. The media report claimed that the certificate lacked the signature of the responsible “Laboratory of Sleep Study” or the Professor of Intensive Care Clinic.

Furthermore, the medical results are not accompanied by treatment proposals, which are necessary in similar cases.

In March 2018, Floros was found guilty of instigating an assassination attempt on lawyer Giorgos Antonopoulos in November 2014 in Penteli, outside Athens, and sentenced to 13 more years in prison.